Anybody ever do group boat ownership?

I came across a deal on Craigslist in San Diego with a guy selling 3 out of 4 partial ownerships on a boat. He's set it up as an LLC and has a contract. I've asked him for the info.

I'm curious, though, if anyone here has ever setup anything like this? I hate the idea of one day shelling out $40,000-60,000 on a boat just for myself and then just always having to find folks to board. It'd be great to find 3 to 5 other people to go in on a boat and then have folks to always ride with and fully split the cost of boat ownership with. So I'm wondering if anybody else has done this and if so how it worked.

Everyone that I've ever talked to that did this said...NEVER AGAIN.

Dont do it.

Never know what's gonna happen. What if something breaks? Nobody is going to take responsibility. What if someone doesn't make their share of payments, maintenance, insurance, what happens if you want it the same weekend someone else wants it? Where does the boat stay? It's not fair to split it, if 1 person is going to use it 75% of the time.

I know there are issues. You'd obviously have to have things written up pretty well to cover everything. The boat would probably need to be stored with storage costs being part of the monthly or yearly maintenance costs. (for San Diego where I am, there are a couple of good places that would work). Agreement would have to made on monthly maintenance fees going into some sort of fund that would cover everything.

If a group ownership was done, I think it would be best to alternate every week with each person 'owning' the boat that week in case for some reason someone wants to take it out on their own or invite 10 family members or something or in case at some point a member stops getting along with the rest. You'd have to have a good understanding of expectations from each of the prospective owners.

I think most problems that might be encountered could be written up in the contract. I think the main problem would just be that chance that someone became a real jerk and wanted to make things difficult for everyone else.

I would never do it

I have owned 2 different boats with another person (same guy on both boats). It worked out GREAT for us, but there are very few people that I would even consider doing this with. I trusted this guy completely, we lived right next to each other and had similar schedules so we could ride together all the time. We had nothing in writing and both boats were owned/titled/insured in my name only. We just had a verbal agreement that we would split the cost of the boat and the cost of storage/insurance. The boats were relatively cheap boats (both were under $10k each). We decided that if one wanted to use it without the other, that he who spoke first got the boat. We both took good care of it, and filled it up prior to returning it to the storage unit after each ride so the other would be able to pick it up with a full tank of gas at any time. I moved away, so we decided to sell the boat when I moved. Split the money, and now each of us own a newer, nicer boat. Like I said, it worked out great for us, but I would be extremely wary and would only do it with someone I knew very well. I would much rather buy a cheap boat on my own than own a nicer boat with someone I didn't trust completely.

If you have responsible people that you totally trust, and know for sure will be 100% fair to you, I'd say go for it. If you don't know them, don't fully trust them, or tend to argue with them a bit, don't even think about a partnership.

I'm involved in partial ownership of an airplane. That's worked out absolutely great. There are some critical differences though. In an airplane, the maintenance requirements are mostly mandated by the FAA, so there isn't typically any dispute as to what we should and should not take care of. There's no serious cleanup required after use, so no one user will really effect how long things last... There are very few things you can do to a plane that will damage it (and leave you still alive), so nobody really does stupid things, for fear of ending up dead... etc etc.

With a boat, you have to worry about dock scars, hard water spots, salt water corrusion (particulary in our area), bent prop/drive shaft issues, mildew, rust, etc etc... If one partner runs it hard and puts it away wet (without it's salt water rinse down), while the others care for it ridiculously well, then it's simply going to be unfair and downright frustrating. If one guy bends the shaft or prop, for instance, and then decides to keep running the boat without fixing it, thus damaging the tranny, it's going to be hard to prove that it was neglect that caused the tranny to blow. Having owned boats for over a decade now, I can tell you, there are plenty of things just like this, where bad judgement can be very costly, and you never know for sure what caused a problem.

That said, the plane partnership has been great. We split the work involved in ownership as well as the costs. Splitting the work has been a dream come true. If I could split the work involved in boat ownership, without the downside risks, I'd totally do it... unfortunately, I don't think I know anyone competent enough with boats, and trustworthy enough that I'd do that...

p.s. The boat I just bought was from partners. It was in great shape.

i would not do it. the local marina here offers this same sort of deal, and i honestly thought about it when buying a new boat. but after careful thought, i pretty much decided not to due to most reasons mentioned already. i wanted to be able to use it whenever, take it wherever, and do whatever with it. so i decided to buy a used supra, and it's worked out great. ive had a few small repairs this summer (most done myself), but its all in owning a used boat. i would strongly recommend buying your own boat...i did a rv loan through my bank at a really good rate, so its a relatively inexpensive payment.

i have never heard of good thing from people that i know that have done group ownerships.

under the perfect circumstances it could work flawlessy.
but i could see it screwing you!
i have a tight group of friends i would consider doing that with. but a stranger.. not a chance.

I have owned three boats in partnerships. I currently own 1 boat outright & another in partnership. The have always worked out great for me but I have always known the people very well and ride a lot with them anyway. I don't know if I would do it with a stranger or not, it would depend entirely on the terms of use and if they fitted how I wanted to use the boat.

Here is the Ad.
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/boa/462154193.html

He is also selling it outright for $18 K.

No way would I do a joint ownership. Imagine if you're on the boat and something breaks - who determines who pays for it? What if that item was worn already and could have broken in anyone's hands - you'd feel pi55ed if you were going to have to pay for it.

All of this could lead to some serious hassles, just what you don't want from something that should be giving you fun.

Thanks for the input. It sounds like, if nothing else, it'd be pretty tough to even find the 'right' interested people. It'd probably would work best between good friends with somewhat similar experience and who are about the same as far as upkeep and maintenance.

funny enough, I am in a partner ownership of a 1996 Maristar 225VRS LT1. I went in with my best friend and both of us are honest and considerate. We each wanted to get a boat and every time we go to the lake we go together anyway so it only made since to go in together. I could not be happier. PS I put a tower, ballast, and a system in the boat and I absolutely love the boat. It has been a great boat. Knock on wood...

RUN!!!!!!!

I wouldn't attempt it again. I lost my butt trying to pull it off, people just plain didn't pay up and it wasn't that much money a year. And as Dave Ramsey says, a partnership is a sinking ship.

I have two buddies who have pulled it off quite well. They always ride together so it makes sense on alot of levels. They offered me an in so we could pick up a nicer boat but I declined. I am too much of a control freak. If I did do a group buy, it would be with these two guys.

you should ask why is selling his share

Im in a partnership w/1 person who only rides w/ me. works out well

NEVER AGAIN

i dont even share ownership with my wife

I shared ownership with a good friend Back in college. We shared the expenses, but due to my friends family business, he was not able to use it as often as I did. His work schedule made it unfair for him. I needed to finish college so we sold it. We are still friends. Probably the exception....not the rule.

It's funny that thus far, ALMOST everybody that "just heard", say they heard horror stories and they would never do it. Then ALMOST every body that has actually done it themselves say it worked out great. Although most, if not all have known and trusted the people.

just struck me as funny.

My .02 is that if the contract is written well you could probably pull it of pretty easily. Get to know the guy first. Hang out with him a few times. Have him take you out on the lake. Check the boat out well, and that should give you an idea of how well they take care of it. Not without risk, but the advantages are obvious.

Monk I think you're spot on.

A legal contract doesn't make anyone responsible or even considerate, it just makes them liable.

A lot of people here have said that a contract is very important. I certainly agree, but its a lot more complicated than that. A good contract still can't make anybody do something. Anybody could decide to not pay, trash the boat, whatever.

All a contract does is give you a strong leg to stand on if you have to take the partner to court. If you do have to go to court, it could cost you a lot of time and money, and there is no guarantee the outcome will go in your favor, even with a good contract. I wouldn't even consider taking a risk like that unless it was someone I knew and trusted very much.

I also own a boat outright (my 3rd boat), and I'm a 1/3 owner of a houseboat right now. This is my first experience in a boat partnership, been involved for about 3 months now. This is a little different because it's a refurb project for profit, but we have an LLC, contract, all that. We're also using it recreationally until we sell, so most of the issues are the same.

As has already been beaten to death, you MUST be in it with people you trust. There are way too many places to abuse the partnership, get lazy, embezzle, etc. You also need to all be on similar financial situations, and IMO it works best if all parties are in similar relationship situations (all married/LTR, or all single).

Make a very clear budget for all costs - insurance, storage, payments, etc. I would also recommend adding a small contribution to a maintenance/repair fund every month. If nothing happens for a while and the repair fund gets big, you can either agree to pitch in for a nice new toy for the boat, or take a rake.

We basically follow the "leave it as you find it" rule for cleanliness, gas, water & black tanks, etc. It's also a good idea to have a buyout process in case someone needs out. In our agreement, any partner can find a buyer for whatever price he can get, but the other two partners have to approve the new guy. We also went ahead and split up the calendar by weeks, even though we all usually hang out together on it anyway. Each of us have 4 months total, and one of the big summer holidays.

One other thing that's nice about having 3 people (odd number) is there's never a tie if we vote on issues. This could be abused, too, if just two of the partners conspire against the other... again, TRUST.

It's working out great for us so far.

Been there, done that. Wasn't a good experience. Lost a great deal of $, and cost a natural born wakeboarder much training time. I would never recommend a boat partnership to anyone!!

I went into partnership on some realestate deals and now it has gone bad. I could only imagine Memorial day July 4th etc...yeah were taking the boat July 4th for 3 days ummm oh wait we wanted it that week? Well Im sorry we already took the time off work etc...and it starts

For our plane partnership, we use http://calendar.yahoo.com and schedule things out way in advance for holidays, etc. You have to have reasonable people involved, of course, but a shared scheduler like that makes it pretty easy to avoid conflicts.

We use Google apps. We have a shared email account for the LLC as well as a calendar, and spreadsheets for expenses, project costs, spare parts lists, etc. It works great.

I've known several people who have pulled it off & been pretty successfull. All were good friends though & typically rode together & split all expenses evenly. Rules were drawn up ahead of time & if anyone defaulted on payments or violated the rules, they could be voted out by the rest of the group. Ownerships rarely changed as I recall though.... if ever.

One guy in Seattle was a co-owner of two boats with two different groups. One was kept on Lake Sammamish & one on Lake Washington. Both were in great shape & he always had a ride whenever he wanted. He ended up renting a house on Sammamish with one of the groups, sold out of the other partnership, and then had a boat & house on the lake with 3 others. It was a cool arrangement for a bachelor & they rode a LOT all year.

(Message edited by bill_airjunky on November 04, 2007)